Logan Marshall-Green, Noomi Rapace, and Michael Fassbender. (Kerry Brown/Twentieth Century Fox)

Director Ridley Scott’s 1979 film Alien was a masterful synthesis of science-fiction and horror that spent a tense hour creating atmosphere and a new life form—and then threw it in your face. (Quite literally for some.) With Prometheus, the 74-year-old director returns to the franchise he started over thirty years ago. If the film of his youth was more than just a genre picture, the passage of time brings him back to the genre with the questions of a man facing his mortality—and with the tricks of a showman who hasn’t forgotten how to scare you. Like the Alien films, and Scott’s Blade Runner, Prometheus poses questions about the cycle of life, and the anxiety of birth and death. But this autumnal action picture asks an even more basic question: Where did we come from?

A figure who looks like something out of Greek statuary stands on a mountain and drinks a potion from what looks like a highly evolved coffee thermos. It courses roughly through his veins and destroys him, and he falls from the heights and plunges into into the sea. This is a prologue and a synopsis. The Greek titan Prometheus created man from clay and stole fire from Zeus. The figure has been seen as a symbol of human accomplishment and pride, as well as the dire consequences of same. In Scott’s film, the mothership Prometheus is on a conflicted mission both philosophical and commercial. So is the movie.

The conflict between commerce and art and commerce and science is as much a part of the new film as the 1979 film. After other directors took the reins of the creatures originally designed by H.R. Giger — and of franchise star Sigourney Weaver — Ridley Scott returns to the beast with a new heroine. The result is one of his best films in years — and one of the most effective science fiction movies I’ve seen in a long time.

The prologue segues to an expedition in Scotland led by Dr. Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace, hardly recognizable from the Dragon Tattoo movies). Shaw and her team uncover cave paintings that feature a strange celestial pattern. Shaw interprets this as an invitation to visit the home of what she calls “Engineers”. The cross she wears symbolizes the higher power she looks up to, and her scientific inquiries rise up to such lofty heights.

Charlize Theron and Idris Elba. (Kerry Brown/Twentieth Century Fox)

Rapace’s Shaw inherits the Sigourney Weaver crown, and in one scene her facial structure looks strikingly like Weaver’s. But there is another strong female presence here: Charlize Theron as Meredith Vickers, the name of a wizened matriarch on the body of a fashion model. Theron recently camped it up as the evil Queen in the mediocre Snow White and the Huntsman, but here she effectively creates a more recognizable villain: the middle manager. Her stern, rulebound disposition is a perfect foil for Shaw, open to questions of faith and science.

The beast we’ve seen since the 1979 film is strange and familiar, both vaginal and phallic. Its most deadly incarnation resembles a giant metallic sperm with teeth. This spermata dentata represents the life cycle in all its danger and potential.

The ubiquitous Michael Fassbender plays David, whom you learn early on is a replicant. Made by man, he is fascinated with what it means to be human, watching scenes from Lawrence of Arabia to expand his repertoire. He tells one of his shipmates later that Lean’s epic is one of his favorite films, which leads one to wonder if replicants have choice? And if man does. David’s motivations can be hard to parse. Prometheus riffs on its 1979 ancestor, almost down to the demographic of its ship’s crew, but its motivations are more complex. The weak link for me is an unrecognizable Guy Pearce, as the elderly bankroll for this mission, who seeks his answers through layers of not entirely convincing makeup. Prometheus doesn’t answer all the questions it raises. But I’d rather a movie leaves questions unanswered than explain everything away.

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Prometheus
Directed by Ridley Scott
Written by Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof
With Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Idris Elba, Guy Pearce
Rated R for sci-fi violence including some intense images, and brief language. After all, in space, well, you know the rest.
Opens today at the Uptown, Avalon, Gallery Place, Georgetown

You’re better off not watching the trailer, but if you must: